Love Me (Coopers Creek Book 1)

by Bronwen Evans

  Pulling in a breath, he looked around his room. His mom hadn’t changed anything in it and there were still pictures of sports teams, a couple of roping and football trophies, and all sorts of stuff scattered around the room that were reminders of his youth.

  He smiled at a picture of him, Ric, and Chase from their high school days that was stuck in a corner of the mirror over his dresser. They were dressed in their football uniforms, smiling at the camera. Most likely his mother had taken the photo.

  Fond memories of his quarterbacking days washed over him. Ric had been one hell of a fullback. He’d mown down anyone in his path like a bulldozer plowing through snow. His eyes moved on to Chase. His long, sandy-brown hair blew in the wind and his wide, infectious grin made Tyler smile.

  Although shorter than him and Ric, Chase had made up for his lack of height by being broad and fast as hell. In his mind, Tyler saw Chase racing down the field, turning back to him, ready to catch the ball over his shoulder.

  And after every game, Maggie had opened her house to the team, feeding the hungry boys and reveling in the chaos that only a bunch of rowdy teenagers in a house can cause. His mother had loved those times and she’d loved the team. She’d known each one of their families and had helped them in times of trouble, too.

  “Uncle Ty?”

  Tyler jumped a little. He hadn’t heard Hayley come into his room because he’d been too caught up in his memories.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  She took his hand and looked up at him with those big blue eyes of hers. “Are you gonna stay for good now?”

  The fear in her eyes twisted Tyler’s heart. Sweeping her into his arms, he hugged her tight. “Yeah, honey. I’m here for good. I promise that I’ll never leave you, okay?”

  Hayley laid her head on his shoulder. “Okay. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” He kissed her cheek and set her back on her feet. “Will you tell Emily that I have to put away a few things and then I’ll come down for dinner?”

  “Yep.”

  “Thanks.”

  Hayley scampered out of the room and Tyler marveled at the change in her. Instead of being sad and withdrawn, she’d returned to her usual bubbly little self. The little girl he’d become used to until his mother had passed. The improvement to Hayley’s personality reinforced his conviction that moving back from New York had been the right thing to do.

  Opening the closet, Tyler saw that the clothes were already hanging in it. He hung the other suits that he’d brought with him and then went to his dresser. Pulling open the drawers, he saw that they were empty.

  It amused him that while she’d hung up some of his clothes, Emily hadn’t touched his underwear or socks. Had she been too shy to or maybe turned on by the thought of touching his more intimate apparel? He smiled at that idea until it conjured images of Emily removing his underwear from him.

  Practically slamming the drawer shut, as though he could shut off the memories with the action, he went back to hanging up clothes. However, he foresaw a lot of cold showers in his future.

  Chapter Six

  Emily had just sat the last bowl of food on the table when Tyler came into the dining room. Her heartbeat skittered out of control at the sight of him in black sweatpants and a Dale Earnhardt Jr. T-shirt. He filled out the shirt perfectly and she knew exactly what was underneath the sweatpants even if it had been four years since she’d seen what they hid.

  “I didn’t know you liked NASCAR. You never used to,” she commented.

  “I don’t, but your brother thinks it’s funny to keep giving me these shirts for Christmas and my birthdays. I think he thinks he’ll eventually wear me down and I’ll become a fan. I just wear them to irk him. I take selfies and post them on Facebook, putting down his drivers. He hates it,” Tyler said.

  Emily laughed and shook her head. “Nothing changes with you guys.” She went to the doorway and called Hayley in from the living room. “Come sit here, sweetie.”

  Hayley sat on the chair that Emily had indicated and looked at Tyler. “Sit by me.”

  “Okay.”

  Emily watched Tyler take the chair next to his niece and smiled at how cute they looked together. Hayley was the spitting image of her mother and Emily’s chest hurt. She still missed Lizzie every day. Lizzie had been the sister she’d never had. Lizzie’s father’s fall from grace had hit her hard and she’d never really recovered. She’d grown wild and daring as if nothing mattered. Unfortunately, that same wildness got her killed.

  Emily took a seat across the table from them and started passing dishes.

  Tyler helped Hayley fill her plate and cut up her meat for her. Emily hadn’t seen them interact much, so it was interesting to watch them together. Although Tyler was a little awkward about helping Hayley, he managed it well. She knew that with some practice, Tyler would excel at being the father figure in Hayley’s life.

  She knew this because he was approaching raising Hayley the way he did everything; with determination and laser beam focus. Tyler was tenacious when he set a goal and nothing deterred him from achieving it, even if it took a little longer than he’d originally planned.

  He raised his eyes and caught her watching him.

  “How come you’re not eating?” he asked.

  She smiled a little. “I was just thinking that you look nice together.”

  An odd expression passed over his face and the combination of bashfulness and irritation confused her. She’d meant it as a compliment and didn’t understand why Tyler would find fault with what she’d said.

  She didn’t address him much during the meal, instead talking with Hayley, who conversed with both of them. Her strategy avoided an argument, but it made things very tense between them. Relieved when dinner was over, she started gathering the dishes.

  Tyler started helping, picking up his and Hayley’s plates and a bowl of potatoes. He followed her to the kitchen and set them on the counter. “Dinner was delicious. Thank you.”

  His compliment surprised her. “Thank you. I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “I’ll help with the dishes,” he said.

  “That’s okay. I got it,” Emily said, not wanting to spend more tension-filled time with him. “I’m sure you still need to settle in.”

  “I insist. It’s the least I could do after you did all of that cooking.”

  Emily couldn’t figure him out. He’d seemed displeased with her almost as soon as he’d arrived and now he was complimenting her. “Fine.”

  Judging by the thinning of his lips, her curt answer had irritated him, but he didn’t say anything.

  Hayley asked if she could go outside to play and Emily told her to stay where she could see her in the yard. Hayley put her jacket on and ran out the kitchen door. She went right over to the sandbox and started digging in it.

  Emily saw Tyler smiling as he watched her out the window. His profile was so striking that she couldn’t move for a moment. Why does he have to be so gorgeous and sexy? It’s not fair. I shouldn’t want him, but I feel like I’m in heat every time I’m around him.

  Tyler turned his head and caught her looking at him. He didn’t speak as he met her gaze. Electricity the strength of a lightning bolt crackled in the air between them and Emily’s body tingled from the force of it. She nervously wet her lips and his eyes darkened as they followed the small movement.

  He didn’t even need to touch her, just his stare set off a strong wave of desire in her. Emily felt a familiar ache in her lower stomach and her breasts tightened in response to his hot gaze. She forced herself to look away and go to the sink to start the dishes.

  As she filled the dishpan with hot soapy water, she remembered all of the times they’d made love in the shower or tub when Maggie had gone to Denver for the day. Concentrating on the dishes, she forced the images away, determined to master her physical reaction to the man standing so close to her.

  The man with the sexy, lean, broad shouldered body, the man who’d taken her
virginity and had given her so much pleasure. The man who’d owned her heart since the age when she’d suddenly become aware of boys in that way. The night of her prom all her dreams had come true. Tyler had been waiting for her when she got home and they had slipped out from under Ric’s nose and gone to their favorite watering hole.

  The rising of her temperature had nothing to do with the hot dishwater and everything to do with memories of Tyler.

  “She looks so cute out there, building a sandcastle.”

  His voice startled her. Looking out the window, Emily had to agree. “She’s such a beautiful little girl. She looks just like Lizzie.” The second her statement was out, Emily wished that she could bite it back and she lowered her eyes back to the dishpan.

  “Yeah.” Tyler’s voice held a wistful note in it, tinged with anger.

  Emily could’ve kicked herself for saying Lizzie’s name. “So everything in New York is okay? Ric’s settling in?”

  “I wouldn’t have come otherwise.”

  His sarcastic answer didn’t sit well with her. “I don’t need your condescension, Tyler. I was just trying to be civil, but I can see that that’s not going to be possible. You’ve had a bug up your ass ever since you got here.”

  “I saw that you put most of my clothes away,” he said. “And you made a nice dinner. Are you trying to win me over by playing Susie Homemaker or something?”

  His accusation made her freeze and her hands stopped moving. A wave of anger rolled over her as she stared at him. “I was just trying to do you a favor by putting your clothes away and as far as dinner goes, I wanted to have a nice meal for Hayley’s sake. To make your arrival special because she’s been so excited about you coming home! That’s all it was!”

  She became further incensed when he lifted an eyebrow and asked, “Are you sure about that?”

  Emily reacted without thinking. She threw the sopping wet, soapy dishcloth at him hard, hitting him square in the chest. “I cooked, you do the damn dishes! You might be the boss in your company and treat your employees like shit, but I’m not one of your subordinates and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you disrespect me!”

  She marched out of the kitchen and jogged upstairs. Her insides shook as she slammed the door to her room and stomped over to her bed. Sitting down, she took some deep breaths to calm herself. It didn’t work.

  Spying her laptop on the other side of her bed where she’d left it earlier, she settled herself comfortably against the headboard and pulled it onto her lap. Opening it, she brought up her music list, stuck in her earbuds, and put on some AC/DC. Good old fashioned hard rock was what she needed right now and it suited her mood perfectly.

  Opening the file that contained the book she was currently editing, Emily started working. Tyler could do the dishes and watch Hayley for a while until she’d cooled down enough so she didn’t appear upset when she bathed Hayley. She didn’t want the little girl to notice that anything was wrong.

  It was a charade that she was going to be playing a lot. Ric’s statement that she and Tyler must be crazy to do this came back to her and she silently agreed with him. However, there was nothing to be done about it now. Suddenly, a year felt like a lifetime.

  *****

  Tyler’s temper burned so hot that he was surprised that the dishwater didn’t boil just from sticking his hands in it. Since moving to New York, he’d always had Allison to do his dishes. However, his mother had insisted that he know how to clean, so he’d done his fair share of dishes growing up.

  As he scrubbed and rinsed, he kept mentally kicking himself for pissing Emily off. If they were going to succeed in helping Hayley this next year, they needed to be a united front. He was going to have to keep his anger and distrust locked away. Part of his frustration was that he still wanted Emily so intensely, but he couldn’t have her.

  However, he knew that it wasn’t right to constantly rake her over the coals just because she made him hornier than any woman he’d ever met. She’d tried to put aside their animosity for Hayley’s sake and he should do the same thing.

  He looked out the window off and on as he worked, smiling at the crumbly mountain that Hayley had made in the sandbox. She took little plastic animals and put them on the mountain in various places. Tyler got a kick out of the careful way she arranged and rearranged them until they were just right.

  When he’d finished and had everything put away, he grabbed his phone and went outside.

  “Looks good, honey,” he said. “How about posing for some pics to send to your uncles?”

  “Okay!” Hayley kneeled by the mountain.

  “Wait. Better yet, let’s make them a video,” Tyler said.

  Hayley giggled. “What do I do?”

  “Pretend you’re a reporter and tell us what’s going on with the mountain. Like the way they do on TV,” Tyler said, getting creative.

  Hayley spread her hands wide. “I need a microphone. Oh! Wait.” She rooted around in the sand and pulled a naked, headless Barbie doll out of it. “I can use her.”

  “What happened to her head?” Tyler asked, barely suppressing a laugh.

  “Bobby McMillan pulled her head off the last time he was here,” Hayley said with a scowl. “I made him go home.”

  “Good girl. Pulling dolls’ heads off isn’t cool,” Tyler said. “Where are her clothes?”

  Hayley shrugged. “She doesn’t have a head, so she doesn’t need them.”

  “Mmm hmm,” Tyler said, enjoying her seven-year-old’s logic. “Okay. Ready?”

  Gripping the Barbie doll’s legs, Hayley cleared her throat. “Ready.”

  Tyler knelt on one knee, focused his phone, and hit the video record button. Then he pointed at Hayley to let her know that she was on.

  In a very serious voice, she reported, “On Highway 238, traffic got backed up when beavers made their dam across it overnight. They were super beavers with huge teeth. They could bite the trees in half with just one try!” She pointed at the line of animals in the sand. “The road was blocked so bad that the aminals couldn’t even get through. They had to go up the mountain, which was hard since they were lazy and got out of breath quick.”

  Tyler bit his lip to keep from laughing at the way she said “animals”.

  Hayley plucked one of the animals from the sand and held the “microphone” over to its mouth. “This is Jerry Giraffe and he saw the weird stuff going on. Tell us what happened.” Changing her voice to what sounded vaguely like a Swedish accent, she continued. “We saw all the trees all over the place and were like, whoa, there’s a bunch of trees…”

  By the time she was done telling her tale, Tyler’s jaw ached from clenching it against laughter.

  “And that’s the story from…” Hayley paused for a moment, “Sandbox News. Bye!” She dropped the doll and blew a kiss at the camera.

  Tyler stopped recording and let out a shout of laughter. Hayley giggled like crazy as she came out of the sandbox and ran over to him.

  “Lemme see!” She could barely get the words out because she was laughing so hard.

  “Okay.”

  Tyler tapped the play button on the phone screen and the video started. The two of them laughed hysterically over it. When it was done, Tyler shared it to his Facebook page and tagged Ric and Chase to it. Then he brushed all the sand off Hayley’s shoes and jeans and they went inside.

  “Can I go show it to Aunt Emily?” Hayley asked. “I know how.”

  “I’m sure you do, but my phone works a little differently than yours. I have business stuff on it,” he said.

  Hayley rolled her eyes. “Okay. Then you show it to her.”

  Tyler sighed internally. “I’ll send it to her phone. Then she’ll have it whenever she wants to watch it. How’s that sound?”

  “Yeah!” She bounced up and down a little as she took off her coat. “Are you going to do it now?”

  “Yep.” Tyler texted the video to Emily’s phone. “There. Now she’ll see our famous reporter. I bet y
ou’ll get a million likes on Facebook.”

  “Yeah!” Hayley hooked her coat over a kitchen chair and took off for the stairs, leaving Tyler smiling after her.

  *****

  Emily jumped when her Skype notification cut through her music. She’d been in the editing zone and was startled by the noise. Pausing the music player, she answered Ric’s incoming video call.

  “Hi. What’s up?” she asked as his face appeared before her on the screen.

  He wiped tears from his eyes as he tried to stop laughing. “You have to look on my Facebook page at the video Tyler made of Hayley. Oh, shit. It’s funnier than hell. Go watch it and then hit me back.”

  He disappeared and Emily logged onto Facebook. She never got on it while she was editing because she invariably got sucked into watching funny cat or kid videos if she did. Going to Ric’s profile, she saw the video and clicked on the play button.

  Her door opened and Hayley ran in just as she started laughing. Hayley clambered onto the bed and scooted over close when she saw herself on the screen. Emily took out her earbuds and unplugged them from the computer so they could watch it together.

  As the video ended, Emily was having a hard time catching her breath from laughing so hard. She snorted just as Tyler poked his head in the door. Her earlier anger forgotten, she waved him inside since she couldn’t talk. Holding her stomach, she tried to get a handle on her mirth.

  “That was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” she said in a voice that trembled with laughter. “I don’t know what made you think to do that, but it’s priceless.”

  Tyler grinned and shrugged. “I have no clue, but it was a lot of fun.”

  “Yeah, and now I’m famous,” Hayley said. “Look how many likes I got!”

  Looking at where Hayley pointed on the screen, Emily saw that the video already had over sixty likes. “Well, I’m not surprised. You’re the best reporter on Sandbox News, after all.”